Exo: A Novel (Jumper) Read Online Free PDF

of your time with us . With your granddaughter.”
    Samantha looked up into Millie’s eyes, searching. “All right.” Then she sighed. “But next week, after they get the staples out. When they know I haven’t taken any infections.”
    Millie bent over and kissed her mother’s cheek, then stroked her hair. “Okay. I’ll prepare a space, and I’ll start interviewing medical staff. We’ll want a nurse and a couple of aids. A hospital bed. Do you want to stay on the catheter?”
    “I’d rather wear diapers, frankly, but I can use a bedpan, once I can move my hip a little.” She tilted her head. “Are you sure ? It’s a stinky, smelly business.”
    Millie nodded. “Yes. I’m sure.”
    Samantha clucked her tongue and gestured. “Closer.” When Millie bent down, Samantha whispered, “You might give Seeana a try.”
    Millie raised her eyebrows. “Really?” She gestured toward file folder still lying on the bed.
    Samantha whispered, “They don’t pay her shit. Doubt if she’s on the payroll of them , or she wouldn’t still be living with her mother.”
    Millie straightened. In a normal voice she said, “Okay. We’ll see.”
    Now she could hear steps running in the hall.
    “How did Davy know to come then?”
    Millie smiled and leaned close. “They’re not the only ones who can install video cameras,” she whispered, then kissed her mother’s temple.
    And jumped.

 
    THREE
    Cent: He keeps saying that
    When I asked for directions, the department receptionist on the third floor of the engineering building gave me a room number and said, “That’s down in purgatory.”
    At my blank look she added, “The basement? With the graduate-assistant cubbies? Are you an engineering student?”
    “No, ma’am.” I didn’t add that I wasn’t a student at the university either.
    “Oh, sorry. Our kids all know what ‘purgatory’ means. Well, take the elevator all the way down and follow the hall around to zero five seven. He’s not going to be there much longer, you know.”
    “I thought his office hours were until six?”
    “They were , but he’s no longer a professor at this university. His contract was terminated, so if you were going to talk to him about getting into one of his seminars, you’re wasting your time.”
    I bobbed my head. “Thanks for the directions.”
    When I stepped off the elevator I saw immediately why they called it purgatory. There was an HVAC plant on this floor and some kind of machine shop, and they hadn’t spent much on sound insulation. It got a little quieter as I walked away from the elevator, going to merely annoying instead of painful.
    The fluorescent lights were the kind that made your skin look pasty and hurt your eyes. Despite the noise, most of the office doors were open, including 057, but the light coming out of Dr. Matoska’s office was different, far closer to natural sunlight, and I wondered if the room had an outside window.
    I stuck my head in. The room was a mess. The entrance was half blocked by a stack of broken-down cardboard boxes leaning against the doorjamb. Spools of wire or fiber spilled across the floor and stacks of books waited beside electronic devices and half-filled boxes. The desk was stacked with boxes, except for a corner with an open, half-filled bottle of scotch, two mismatched glasses, and a Marvin the Martian coffee mug.
    The fluorescent bulbs had been pulled out of the fixture and a bank of different colored LED lights, approximating real sunlight, dangled from jury-rigged wiring.
    But no sign of Cory Matoska, Ph.D.
    The next office was open, too, and a young woman sat before a computer monitor. I said, “Excuse me,” but she didn’t even twitch. I looked closer and saw she was wearing earbuds, the wires hidden in her long brown hair. I stuck my hand into her field of vision and waved.
    She turned to the door and pulled out one of the earbuds. “Yes?”
    I jerked my thumb back down the hall. “Seen Professor Matoska?”
    She